Naturalisation-Romanian wife of British citizen

[sdml]

My wife, a Romanian citizen, has lived in the UK since 2007 and we have been married since 2010. I am British.
She has lived here as a self sufficient person but has not had health insurance in place. I understand that UKBA will claim that she does not fulfil the residence requirement for the period 2007 to 2010.
Is this questionable as a matter of EU law?
Will UKBA be able to claim she still does not fulfil the residence requirement even now she is married to a British citizen?
When does the clock start ticking for the residence requirement in this case?
Am I right in thinking that the residence requirement is 3 years in this case and that time before we were married can count, so long as all other conditions are met?

[s_anda]

Hi there,

I myself am a Romanian married to a British citizen and I contacted UKBA concerning the Citizenship matter.
I have been told that even being married to a British citizen, I have to meet the requirements of any other EU citizen in order to get apermanent residency status(and be succesfull in getting BC).
Basically, your wife should of been exercising treaty rights for 5 years(the clock would start from 2007 in her case). The fact that she hasn't had health insurance might be an issue. The only "advantage" she would have(beeing married to a British citizen, would be that she won't have to wait for an extra year after getting PR status to apply for BC).
The 3 years rule, I've been told ,would have applyed if she'd have an spouse visa(I wasn't aware that you could get such a visa, as Romania is part of the EU, but..that's what I have been told).
I would suggest she apply for PR with EEA3 form as the application is free of charge and take it from there. If she gets the PR card, then applying for BC shouldn't be a problem.

Hope this helps.

[sdml]

The application form for certification of Permanent Residence was interesting because it shows that an EHIC card is sufficient to satisfiy the health insurance requirement to prove self sufficiency. I guess my wife will probably have to apply for this in person next time she is in Romania, but I will look into her getting it by post before then.

Otherwise the lack of Health Insurance seems to be a bar to getting certification of Permanent Residence as well as Naturalisation. This has the effect of the clock still not having started for anything.

I had hoped that she might have got free of this requirement by being married to a British citizen. From what I have read I have the impression that the wife of a British citizen is, as far as the NHS is concerned, entitled to free treatment. It seems odd that if that is so it can still be a bar to properly exercising treaty rights that she does so.

[s_anda]

Just be aware that the EHIC card issued by Ro is only available for 6 mts at a time. She could check if she could get a letter of some sort from the health autorities stating that she payed health inssurance for the entire period she needs.(she would then need to have it translated in English by an authorized translator) - she might have to pay for previous years if she didn't pay health insurance in Romania.

Did she go to GP a lot in the time she was sellf sufficient?

[sdml]

Thank you for this. I see no problem in reapplying every six months for a Romanian e111, if she can do it by post (as you can in the UK). Still as she has not lived in Romania for many years she will not meet any requirements to have made contributions in Romania. I do not imagine that payment of contributions retrospectively will satisfy the UKBA that she has been covered by e111 for the past.

She only sought to register with a GP here when she became pregnant with our daughter, a British citizen. I do not think that UKBA will accept that this lets her off the requirement to have health insurance. In fact I think they will maintain that even if she did not use the NHS the fact that she might need to will mean she was not self sufficient.

[s_anda]

If she didn't pay anny health contributions in Romania, she might not be issued the EHIC. And as far as I know, you can't apply for it by post.

Anyway, best of luck and congratulations for your little one